


Three's a Party

by Bioluminescent



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Hurt/Comfort, POV Essek, ep77 spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-09-18
Packaged: 2020-10-21 06:54:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20689346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bioluminescent/pseuds/Bioluminescent
Summary: Essek has learned many things about the various members of the Mighty Nein during their acquaintanceship, but on their trip to the prison and the conversations after show him he has so much more to learn.





	Three's a Party

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for episode 77
> 
> I was super inspired during this episode to write the whole prison sequence from Essek's pov, so thats basically the premise.
> 
> Not betaed

Essek watches as Caleb nods at him once, before glancing at the guards as they stand to the sides of the now open door and slowly enters the cell.

The wizard settles himself on the floor in front of the bound Scourger, Jester slinking silently into the cell behind him to lean unobtrusively against the wall next to the door. He can barely imagine what Jester could be up to, seeing as how she cannot do any magic in the cell, the same as the rest of them, but then Caduceus shrinks down into the form of an elf to do the same on the other side of the door in the room, and Essek frowns.

Without warning, Caleb begins to speak.

It is obvious to Essek that none of his travelling companions know what he is saying, and they are comfortable in that fact in a way he himself is not.

He is sure that other members of the dens would agree with him if he ever admitted to this fact, but it is somewhat unsettling to hear the language of their strongest enemies dripping molten slow and easy from his protege’s tongue. 

Resigning himself to memorizing the foreign words for the archivists later, Essek folds his arms under his cloak and watches.

Caleb rests his arms lax in his lap, hair glinting bronze in the dim light from the hall, and asks a question Essek can only guess at, considering the defeated and weak way she answers him. They continue on, and Essek begins to sharpen the sketch in his mind he has been making of Caleb Widogast the past few months of their acquaintance.

Putting aside the clear mastery of the shared language between Caleb and the prisoner, the marked difference in the way he is treating an enemy and they way he treats his friends, or allies, is surprising.

The gentle intensity to his words and demeanor is nothing like the Caleb of usual. There is confidence to his entire being, a solemn strength that should worry Essek, but just makes him want to understand where it came from. 

The prisoner slowly lifts her head, one eye gleaming from under greasy hair, teeth flashing in a grim smile as she answers Caleb, the condescension clear even in the foreign language.

At her answer, Caleb’s head bows slightly, and Essek can hear as the man takes a few small steadying breaths. And as soon as that, something settles around Caleb like a cloak, some acceptance of whatever she had said, and Caleb looks up at her again.

Caleb’s next words only brings a chuckle from her lips, and she leans forward as she speaks. Even though he cannot understand their words, Essek can _feel_ the menacing promise in her words, and the recognition of her threat from Caleb. 

Out of the corner of his eye Essek catches Nott shifting uneasily next to Beauregard in the hall at the disgusted laughter from Caleb as it catches against the stone and metal, bouncing down the passageway before fading. What sound like names regain his attention again, but he only sees the smug nod of the prisoner when he turns back to them.

Silence settles almost comfortably over them all until Essek catches a slight shift of the prisoner’s face, a flash of emotion there and gone too quickly to completely understand.

Now it is her turn to tilt her head in an attempt to catch Caleb’s eyes, her voice echoing around the cell with the force of her questions.

Caleb lifts his head and stares into her face for a long moment before responding. His voice is light, curious, like it is when he asks Essek a careful question about dunamantic theory over their lessons. The prisoner’s intensity fades into smug superiority again as he continues. His voice quickens into a brisk pace, informative and cold in its strength.

She nods as he speaks. Another strange look flashes across her face, and the chains clatter behind her as she leans forward once again, her face close to his. 

In the blink of an eye, her face twists in anger or hatred as one hand swipes out at Caleb where he is sitting on the floor. The guards shout, readying their crossbows as Essek catches a flash of magic from Caleb before the prisoner plunges something into his neck. Without hesitation or even a noise of pain, Caleb rears back and swings his own clenched fist forward, a glint of stone in his hand, cracking his fist across her jaw.

Blood spatters over the stone from her mouth as Jester leaps forward, shoving herself between Caleb and the prisoner, her shield ringing as it strikes the edge of the chair. Caduceus darts forward and helps Jester pull Caleb back, who has not moved his gaze from the prisoner.

Once there is enough room for the guards, they rush in and scatter bolts through her chest. Caleb raises a hand in an aborted motion as if to stop them, mirroring Essek’s own hand as he pulls on his magic to lift the prisoner from the chair. 

Something deep in his chest curls as he looks at the woman suspended in the air, gurgling as much as she can with her lungs filling with her own blood. He is not foolish enough to think that it is hatred or rage that propels him to this extreme, but something else he does not want to identify in this moment. Caleb steps forward, one hand pressing against his wound, blood leaking gently between his fingers, and Essek continues to hold the woman with his magic, waiting. The others of his group only watch, either in shock or awe of what has happened, Beauregard’s gaze especially piercing in her wariness.

Essek looks to where Caleb stands, breathing heavily.

He holds the prisoner where she is as Caleb moves in front of her, close enough for his coat to brush her ankles if she was capable of standing on her own. 

A moment passes.

Caleb lifts his free hand. He clenches it into a fist with a slight glance at Essek over his shoulder, blue eyes piercing even in the darkness. There are quiet gasps of shock from both the guards and the others as his gaze slides from Caleb to the prisoner.

He wills his magic to life as he slowly closes his fist, wills it into destruction and carnage, and it responds gleefully. Wet crunching fills the cell and hall as her torso twists and compresses, bone puncturing skin and organs, the scent of bile mixed with blood flooding the air and irritating his sensitive nose, just as much as the grind and pop of bone grates unpleasantly in his ears.

And through it all, Caleb stands and watches, silent.

He lets the corpse fall to the ground carelessly, the chains rattling against the stone. Caduceus steps forward and applies steady pressure to the wound on Caleb’s neck, Beauregard stepping in to help pull him back out of the cell, intending to the front of the prison.

Jester looks to him, “Essek can we heal him please? Can we heal him?”

She sighs in relief as he nods and waves a hand, pulling back the limitations on magic just enough for them to heal Caleb.

The guards are only now keeping a close eye on the corpse, convenient now that the threat is no longer there they pay attention. He levels a glare at them as the group chats about what happened, and whether or not Caleb got what information he needed. 

The fact that Caduceus so easily turns to necromancy to possibly get more answers unsettles Essek, even as the rest of the group seems to nod in remembrance. 

“Essek?” Caleb’s rough voice draws his attention. “Would you allow us to use this corpse for an interrogation?”

How bold. Taking in a deep breath, he considers his options. The pros and cons are glaring but it is the intense desire in Caleb’s eyes, the need, the pure _wanting_ that convinces him to allow this transgression in protocol.

As they bumble among themselves on what they are going to do about it, as they begin to talk of taking her head, he has to restrain himself from rolling his eyes at their usual chaotic ways.

“Unfortunately, no. This needs to be notified to the rest of the dens, and a body produced.” They fight against their disappointment easily, but Caleb continues to push, until he is required to put his foot down. Strangely enough, Caleb accepts it, nodding to himself, his earlier confidence with the prisoner sinking down further into himself, being wrapped up for the next time he may need to use it.

It is with steady, if wavering steps, that Caleb turns from the conversation to kneel at the head of the mangled corpse on the stone. He reaches out with one hand and gently brushes the lank hair from her face, oblivious to the blood he streaks across her forehead.

With that, when it should be all done and finished, Caduceus steps forward near the body, glancing at him as if for permission, curiosity clear in his eyes. 

“No funny business.”

The firbolg grins at him in that easy way of his, naturally aimed to disarm, “Of course not.”

One slender hand reaches down to one of the dismembered limbs and feels at the peculiar scarring on the forearm, Jester leaning over his shoulder and grinning wickedly as she does so, whispering faintly in his velvety ear. He nods and rumbles something back before glancing over at Caleb, lifting the wrist enough to catch the faint light.

“Caleb?” Caduceus continues to clinically look over the markings on the arm as Caleb hums in response. “This is the same thing that happened to you?”

The question asked is less shocking than the answer that Caleb provides as Essek can feel his thoughts screech to a halt.

His voice soft, “Yes. All of his students…” before trailing off into silence, glancing uneasily in Essek’s direction.

Caleb’s hesitance is clear with the implications that are being made, but Essek forcibly pushes that aside in order to turn to the guards and snarl at them when the question is raised on how the prisoner was able to assault a visitor, no matter how dubious.

Once they have been put in their place, he turns back to the group as they clump around Caleb. “Well.” He smiles slightly, and he can feel it pulling with the strain of forcing sincerity. “It seems as if these, Scourgers, these Vollstrecker, are well trained.”

At that, Caleb grimaces out a smile, his eyes lingering near the floor as Nott presses herself against his leg and Beauregard and Fjord strike up what seems to be an honor guard to his sides.

Fjord begins to herd Caleb out the door, “We should go.”

They filter out, but not before Nott strays from the group to peer down at the corpse, nodding to herself at whatever she finds. As he leads the way, he can hear Nott scrambling up onto Jester’s shoulder, whispering intently in her ear, Jester murmuring back as they progress out of the prison and soon above ground.

The Mighty Nein are wary and tense on their short journey, clustering tightly around Caleb as they walk, and he catches a few glimpses from the corner of his eye of Jester fisting one hand in the sleeve of Caleb’s jacket, or looping their pinky fingers together as they walk next to each other, flashing a smile at Caleb when he glances at her. Beauregard glares at most of the people that stop short to stare at them, not uncommon for her, but with Fjord looming behind her and doing the same results in many of them scurrying to the sides of the street.

It seems that their colorful group is only more colorful when one of their members is still covered in a significant amount of his own blood.

By the time he has led them back to their house, there is only a few neighbors peeking through the window to observe as they tramp up the stairs and inside. The windchime clatters cheerfully among the silence that had settled over the group. As one they all make their way to one of the various lounges and settle themselves around the room. Essek remains standing near the door.

He lets them start to discuss what they wish to do, and answers them as best he can. Their questions of resources and safehouses are expected and annoying as they are expected.

Jester hums to herself as she thinks about her scrying spell, tapping her pen idly against the paper of her journal where it sits on her lap. “I can’t scry on, like, objects, it’s only a people or location sort of thing.” Tilting her head to the side as she frowns about this, Fjord unconsciously moves his head so he is not hit with her horn.

“I mean, going back to what Essek said,” Nott pipes up, gesturing at where he stands, “Do we know all the members of the Cerberus Assembly? Could we start scrying on them for information?”

Everyone glances in Caleb’s direction before snapping their eyes back to the table in the center of the room.

Beauregard shrugs, lifting one hand to wave it lazily in the air, “We could always go back to Ussa? No, it was Yussa, Yussa Errenis? He’s on the outside of it all, and we know he’s not fond of the Academy. Cuz you know how, like, all rich people know each other?”

Caduceus and Fjords protests at this are drowned out by Nott, “I do know that!”

They hee and haw over this Yussa Errenis for some time before Jester clears her throat.

“You know who might know a lot about this? Who has a lot of information and knows lots of things that aren’t aboveground?” At the slightly confused look on Nott’s face, Essek is slightly concerned she is about to begin speaking of her deity. Jester continues, “The Gentleman?”

The group leans back as one, all looking to each other in consideration.

For what he is beginning to believe will not be the last time with this group, Essek is flabbergasted by what Nott says next.

“Papa?”

Jester hums. “Maybe papa. But, he would probably know of an artifact of that size being smuggled around, with all his fingers in all his pies.”

Essek listens silently as this group of wandering adventurers continues to list all of the names they know, or have connections to to ask about the war or the whereabouts of the beacon. Yussa Errenis in Nicodranas. The Gentleman in Zadash. The Jaggentoths and their questionable business practices across Wildemount. And unspoken, the favor of the Bright Queen herself. Wide reaching and seemingly powerful in their casual influence and attachment to these various figures.

Needling at Beauregard is amusing as always, but Caleb’s little speech to affirm his trust and further alliance is even more interesting.

“Collect your books.” 

The glee that threatens to burst out from Caleb is what he would imagine the sun must be like, for he nearly glows, a small smile clear on his face as he immediately stands and lifts his arms. “They are always on me.”

Jester gasps in twin happiness with Nott, both of them smiling widely at Caleb at this prospect.

He motions to Caleb to lead the way, and follows as he does just that. Once they are settled in the room, the door creaks open and Jester bounces in, a bowl in her hand as she grins at the both of them and settling down in one of the chairs, kicking her skirt as she folds herself up. Caleb smiles back at her, the skin around his eyes crinkling, and Essek has to bite back a sigh once again.

It was apparently too much to wish that their lessons remained private.

**Author's Note:**

> Come yell at me on tumblr at [vecnards](https://vecnards.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
